Wells College in the Finger Lakes region of New York has announced that it will close its doors for good this summer, eliminating its NCAA Division III men’s and women’s swimming programs.
The school says that it does not have the financial resources to continue operating, a problem that it says “exacerbated by a global pandemic, a shrinking pool of undergraduate students nationwide, inflationary pressures, and an overall negative sentiment towards higher education.”
Federal data reports 346 full-time undergraduates at the university at the start of the 2023-2024 academic year, with almost half of those (153) participating in varsity athletics.
That includes 5 men and 9 women on the varsity swim teams, though at present only three men and four women are listed on the program’s website.
The team is led by head coach Trish George. George has been with the program for 18 years, taking over as head coach in the 2006-2007 season. She also serves as the school’s aquatics and fitness center director. The team also has an assistant coach Alexis Huff.
The swimming programs competed in the North Eastern Athletic Conference, where they have won five conference title – including three straight with the women’s team in 2012, 2013, and 2014. She is a two-time conference coach of the year.
The program finished last out of 8 teams at the 2024 Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference Championship.
The school once had almost 1,000 students on campus.
The closure comes after the school had some positive signs for its financial health. It was placed on probation in 2019 by an accrediting agency over concerns of whether it had the resources to continue operating, but that probation was lifted in 2021 after the agency determined that the school had improved its position.
Students will be offered the opportunity to transfer to Manhattanville University outside of New York City as part of an agreement with the school.
This is part of a nationwide trend that has continued since the COVID-19 pandemic. In three years from 2019 through 2021, 579 colleges and universities closed or merged.
The State of New York has been hit particularly hard. The state saw 7 schools with swim programs either drop those swim programs or close altogether in 2023. Those 7 schools combined for 158 roster spots last year. There was positive news earlier this year when St. Joseph’s University on Long Island announced earlier this year that it was adding a men’s swimming team.
Among the college’s most famous alumni is Pleasant Rowland, who founded the Pleasant Company and created the American Girl brand. She graduated from the school in 1962. Frances Folsom Cleveland, wife of President Grover Cleveland, also graduated from the school.
@Braden Keith, you forgot my mother in the last paragraph! 😉
Seriously, I’m so sad. It was a great liberal arts institution.
Fun fact: Wells has one of the largest, and best-placed, college banners at Harry’s Bar in Paris.
THE FAMOUS ANNE LEPESANT’S MOTHER!
Does anyone have insight as to why NYS seems hard hit in particular? I know population is more stagnant and they have a lot of small, enrollment-driven schools, but so does Ohio and Pennsylvania. What’s up here?
The non powerhouse LACs are losing their appeal. Its one thing thing to go to a t20 LAC with a huge endowment like Williams or Bowdoin but it’s something else entirely to go to a school like this. Not to knock the school at all but I know LACs and I’ve never heard of it.
Prestige and endowment are important for getting students to attend your school. Additionally COVID did some damage to small schools.
– someone currently in the NESCAC recruiting process
SUNY schools also offer a much better financial alternative for New Yorkers that at least PA doesn’t have (can’t speak for OH.)
Pitt and PSU have outrageous in state tuition
Pennsylvania has a whole network of D2 schools that are a better comparison to SUNY than are Pitt and Penn State.
Touché – though several of those schools have consolidated recently and look precarious themselves, perhaps that is buying time for small independent PA colleges. Does seem odd that NY is catching the brunt of this. Def not a good omen for similar states.
What will happen to the campus, buildings and aquatic center? Anything continue to operate?
No plan has been announced yet.
They had a 5 lane pool – love everything about that.
Sad on all counts.
Also, looks like a very pretty campus.
This number seems very high for a 3 year period “This is part of a nationwide trend that has continued since the COVID-19 pandemic. In three years from 2019 through 2021, 579 colleges and universities closed or merged.”
What would the number be for 2019-2024 (one small local college here is closing this summer)?
I couldn’t find merged, but it looks like 110 have closed since 2016.
The number is from the US Department of Education.
Here’s a list of schools closed since 1986 if you’d like to peruse it. It’s…ugly. https://www2.ed.gov/offices/OSFAP/PEPS/docs/closedschoolsearch.xls
The data at the bottom includes number of specific campuses closed, not schools per se, but the 579 number is the way the USDE summarized it (which seems to be schools, not campuses/locations).
Wow, worse than I thought, that is a long list, after line 2000 I started to skip down the list to see how long it actually was. It looks like the upswing in closures started back in 2006 (graph at the bottom of the sheet).
Many of the schools on that list I have heard of at one point or another for different reasons, did not know of all those closed locations/campuses/schools.
Schools below 3500 students and without serious grad school income are going to have a tough time surviving. And that’s a lot of schools. Demographics alone will kill 25% of the college